Looking at Big Diversity

The Bobcats have a plethora of big men this season – last night, Charlotte sent out Boris Diaw, Bismack Biyombo, Byron Mullens, and Tyrus Thomas against the Orlando bigs, while Gana Diop and D.J. White never made it to the scorer’s table. For the season, all of those names but Diop have played at least 150 minutes. Across the league, there are 114 bigs (players I have marked as power forwards and centers) who have met this minute criteria, so I thought it would be interesting to look at how the Bobcats players stack up across a few statistics, given the diversity of styles represented.

The below table shows the player’s statistics for the season and then, in parentheses, their rank among the 114 bigs in this query. The Bobcats have leaders in a couple of categories, though they are not that surprising. Hint – there is a Bobcats’ big who likes to pass (too much at times) and another Bobcats’ big who tries to block every shot when he is on the floor.

Tyrus’ numbers are pretty disappointing, aside from the strong block rate. But I’d like to remind everyone that he is still recovering from a couple of injuries last season as well as the sprained ankle during the pre-season. If I had done this table with his numbers from last year, the view of him would be far different – last seasons stats shown with theoretical rank against this year’s field:

Player

Pts per
100 Team Poss

TrueShooting%

PER

Defensive
Rebound Rate

Block Rate

Steal Rate

Assist Rate

Tyrus Thomas

25.6 (22)

53.6 (50)

19.32 (27)

21.5 (44)

4.7 (7)

1.8 (31)

6.4 (63)

As for Byron Mullens – I’m a fan of his aggressiveness offensively and he is showing some improved effort on the defensive glass – but he still has a ways to go. Even among high scoring bigs, his defensive rebound rate is sub-par. There are 44 bigs scoring more than 20 points per 100 team possessions – and 36 of them have better defensive rebounds rates than “7 feet of smooth”.

Final note: Who else was surprised that Boris Diaw had the second best defensive rebound rate among the qualified Charlotte big men? While his passive play offensively has been frustrating, his play in other areas has seen less of a drop-off.